It’s becoming – at least here in the U.S. – harder and harder to avoid covering political news in our Funny Names In The News segments, as this marks the third straight week with at least one political figure prominently featured.

Barack Obama looking at things.

I’ve always said that Barack Hussein Obama vs. Willard Mitt Romney was one of the best-named presidential showdowns – though perhaps not the funniest – of all time.

Last night, Obama made his biggest speech in years – one that was met with favorable reviews, despite the lofty expectations he set due to his last two speeches at the Democratic National Convention. As much as we all would – and do – love to talk about politics, that’s not what this blog is about, so let’s move on.

…to something somewhat related. In a CNN piece entitled “Navy Seals: A Battle for the Conscience“, Barbara Starr details the Navy SEALs’ response to a recent tell-all story from one of the participants in the mission that captured Osama bin Laden. It’s a good piece and definitely worth reading, but what delighted me was the list of names I came across. There was Rear Admiral Sean Pybus and Admiral William McRaven, both of whom were pressing against a trend for soldiers becoming celebrities and publicly exposing their political views.

Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy both looking at things, but different things.

There are some things that just catch the attention of a funny names blogger. One such thing is the headline “Hawke, Delpy, Linklater Reunite Before Midnight“, which was a little teaser that of course got me to click. It turns out that actors Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy are reuniting with famed director Richard Linklater for the third installment in their series which began with 1994’s Before Sunrise and 2004’s Before Sunset, and is now continuing with Before Midnight, which I believe will have to be the final installment since there just aren’t enough hours in the day to get any more titles that way.

Arto’s the film buff among us (and Rob has definitely seen more films than me, although not always high-quality ones), so I’ll just leave it at that, and settle for writing the kind of inspired photo caption that will win this blog the Pulitzer Prize.

Finally, in Funny Names Blog News In The News (Dave’s note: that phrase doesn’t make sense, nor does me writing editors comments about things I could just change), we’ve been getting a lot of hits lately from people searching for risque images of Olympic swimmer and Stanford student Ranomi Kromowidjojo – Ranomi Kromowidjojo legs and Ranomi Kromowidjojo naked were two of our top search queries this week.

What this means for all of us is that anyone who searched for these things and arrived at our blog was disappointed when they realized it was just three awesome guys (and a cool gal once in a blue moon) riffing on hilarious nomenclature.

Sorry fellas, we’ll be sure to put some pictures up when this Stanford student decides to become a fading actress. (For the sake of being humane, we should also add that we enjoy using sarcasm as a comedic device, so you’re better off looking elsewhere for your, um, research.)

Now that we’ve disappointed a very small subsection of our male “fans,” we’re going to help shore up some support among our female fans with some Jake Gyllenhaal “news.” Normally I hate this stuff, but I’m a sucker for people with two sets of doubled letters in their last names (hence why Arto has a green card), and am always delighted when turns of phrase like “amateur Swiftologist Darren Franich” work their way into credible news sources… or Entertainment Weekly.We’ll leave you with this doozy from amateur Swiftologist Darren Franich, on whether Taylor Swift’s latest song could be about Jake Gyllenhaal:

“The song notably does not mention coffee… no way it’s about Jake Gyllenhaal!” – Amateur Swiftologist Darren Franich

There you have it, folks. Definitive proof. You can stop holding your breath now.

I go on vacation and look at all the news I miss! Good thing I have you guys to keep me in the loop. Also, to Arto the film buff: the Toronto International Film Festival is in my neighbourhood – I’ll keep you posted on any sightings I have this week 🙂